Had I not This, or This, I said,
Appealing to Myself,
In moment of prosperity —
Inadequate — were Life —
"Thou hast not Me, nor Me" — it said,
In Moment of Reverse —
"And yet Thou art industrious —
No need — hadst Thou — of us"?
My need — was all I had — I said —...
Had I presumed to hope —
The loss had been to Me
A Value — for the Greatness' Sake —
As Giants — gone away —
Had I presumed to gain
A Favor so remote —
The failure but confirm the Grace
In further Infinite —
'Tis failure — not of Hope —
But Confident...
Had this one Day not been.
Or could it cease to be
How smitten, how superfluous,
Were every other Day!
Lest Love should value less
What Loss would value more
Had it the stricken privilege,
It cherishes before.
Had we known the Ton she bore
We had helped the terror
But she straighter walked for Freight
So be hers the error —
Had we our senses
But perhaps 'tis well they're not at Home
So intimate with Madness
He's liable with them
Had we the eyes without our Head —
How well that we are Blind —
We could not look upon the Earth —
So utterly unmoved —
Untrodden, drear, and lone,
Stretched many a league away,
Beneath a burning, noonday sun,
The Syrian desert lay.
The scorching rays that beat
Upon that herbless plain,
The dazzling sands, with fiercer heat,
...
Hail, sovereign love, which first began
The scheme to rescue fallen man!
Hail, matchless, free, eternal grace,
That gave my soul a Hiding Place!
Against the God who built the sky,
I fought with hands uplifted high,
Despised the mention of His grace,
Too proud to seek a Hiding Place....
1 GOD of the year! with songs of praise
And hearts of love, we come to bless
Thy bounteous hand, for thou hast shed
Thy manna o'er our wilderness.
2 In early spring-time thou didst fling
O'er earth its robe of blossoming;
And its sweet treasures, day by day,
Rose...